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Alliance battleship Chimaera
The Chimaera (BB-1701) was an ''Iapetus''-class fast battleship in service with the Terran Alliance's star fleet. The next logical step in the ever-increasing upward trends of firepower and speed, the Iapetus type were incredibly resilient warships that could easily match several lesser ships by themselves: however, they were overall too costly to ever replace the ships they outclassed. Design The Iapetus-class fast battleships were, in many respects, a complete departure from previous design philosophies in the Terran Alliance. Utilizing their newfound contact with the Consortium and the extragalactic Alparan Empire to bring the Alliance up to speed on hyperadvanced forms of power generation meant that fewer reactors could be used to produce the same or even greater power than they could before. This, coupled with rapid advances in sensor and weapons technology, led to the general mothballing of the last remnant of the second-generation fleet that had challenged the Ravasect; third-generation Alliance starships from here on out would be increasingly back-modified to accept these new technologies, upgrading as they became available to boost their capabilities far beyond what they had been prior to 2505. Broadly described as "Generation 3.5", the Iapetus type was almost too advanced for its time: it borrowed heavily from Consortium design practices and shared technology, boasting larger guns and equal firepower even to the Terra dreadnoughts which had been the heavy hitters of the fleet since the Razorbird Crusades. The hullform was more streamlined than previous starships - something that was found on contemporary Luna-class battlecruisers - but this would not be repeated due to the lack of ability to modify the surface structures. Their wedge-shaped hull was reminiscent of Nagato, but bore a characteristic Alliance flare with the smaller mirrored hull beneath the main body of the warship. The engine nacelles were located in the rear, in an 'asterisk' arrangement that promised some measure of survivability in the event of action damage. The Iapetus type also brought a new standard of power generation and sensor technology to the fore, to such an extent that the old models had to be abandoned and the system completely redone to deal with the remarkable changes. Armament The main armament of the Iapetus class was its eighteen 38cm laser cannons: the largest laser cannons to ever see service in the Alliance up to that point in time. With a fire control range approaching 30 light-minutes, the Iapetus type could easily dispatch any opponent near or far with impunity. The trump card of the class, however, was the 51cm PC-1 spinal mount boring laser: a massive cannon capable of tearing a battleship apart with one shot. The Iapetus type, in keeping with Alliance doctrine, also mounted a formidable secondary armament: they boasted two Hyperion-class heavy cruisers' worth of firepower with their 20.3cm laser cannons, while their 15cm medium gun battery was equal to four Pasiphaë-class light cruisers- to say nothing of their 10.5cm guns, which constituted a whole flotilla of point-defense frigates. This heavy firepower came at the expense of their light 2cm laser cannons, and a general downward trend in the number of 5cm laser blasters and the effectiveness of their Aegis laser network. While this was offset by the fact that the Iapetus class never had to operate without escorts bristling with anti-starfighter defenses, the design never really caught on- the Neptune class, which followed them, would focus more on improving the Mars hull and mating it to the Iapetus's big-gun firepower. History Early Service ''Chimaera (BB-1701) commissioned into the Terran Alliance star fleet October 20th, 2515. Her entry into the fleet was marked as the same day as the ten-year anniversary of the reentry of the Aetanii into galactic prominence. Captain Terry Pike would take command upon exit from the Luna naval yards and she would be immediately enrolled into the 4th Fast Battle Squadron with her sisters Moonshadow ''and ''Resolute, as well as the newly-refurbished Styx-class battlecruiser Nemesis. As her hull number, 1701, was famous throughout Terran history as the hull number of the fictional starship Enterprise, her squadronmates immediately dubbed her as Enterprise- to avoid confusion with the Alliance star carrier Enterprise already in service at that time, they added the prefix "Battlenaught". The latter was a popular term for the Iapetus class, as Terran Alliance classification is based on ship length- thus, since the Iapetus type was midway between battleship and dreadnought for size, they received their endearing name. However, it also had a sarcastic ring to it- as the Iapetus class was so expensive to produce, they were seen as unusable since they could not be replaced, leading to the similar term "battle-not". Third War in Heaven Service Second Battle of Vermilion Chimaera first entered the war as part of the 1st Fleet's sortie to support Coalition forces in the Vermilion Starzone, which developed rapidly into a full-scale fleet battle that neither side had anticipated. She would fire her guns in anger for the first time against the Accord battleship Vendetta, from a range of 10 light-seconds, and would go on to expend several thousand shots into the warship until she was abandoned and fell into Vermilion's star. As the system was covered by a massive asteroid belt, the battle quickly devolved into individual ships shooting at one another from range, hiding among the rocks in the belt- Chimaera would break the impass with a charge into the Accord fleet, emptying her short-range cannons into the Accord cruiser Temptress and blowing it to space-dust. She would not suffer any damage during the battle. Battle for Tarnis Chimaera then served as the impromptu flagship of the 10th Fleet, a 16,000-ship fleet formed by splitting the 1st Fleet in two for the strategy undertaken by Admirals Mason and Irizaki at the battle of Tarnis. Under Admiral William van der Kuylen, she would warp into the Tarnis starzone at short range from the Accord force's right flank and pierce through at the head of her charging fleet, breaking up the enemy formation and turning the battle into a rout as the disorganized Accord ships panicked. Action at the Theta Cygni Starzone Battle of the Stygian Well Decommissioning Category:Starship classes Category:Star Dreadnoughts Category:Terran Alliance Category:Alliance Starships Category:Battleships